Gladys Yang (; 19 January 1919 – 18 November 1999) was a British translator of Chinese literature and the wife of another noted

literary translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

Yang Xianyi Yang Xianyi (; January 10, 1915 – November 23, 2009) was a Chinese literary translator, known for rendering many ancient and a few modern Chinese classics into English, including '' Dream of the Red Mansions''. Life and career Born into a wea ...

Biography

She was born Gladys Margaret Tayler at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing, China, where her father, John Bernard Tayler, was a Congregationalist missionary and a member of the

London Missionary Society The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed in outlook, with Congregational m ...

and where from childhood she became intrigued by Chinese culture.Delia Davin. ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', 2012. Subscription required. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
/ref> She returned to England as a child and from 1927 to 1937 boarded at Walthamstow Hall in

Sevenoaks Sevenoaks is a town in Kent with a population of 29,506 situated south-east of London, England. Also classified as a civil parish, Sevenoaks is served by a commuter main line railway into London. Sevenoaks is from Charing Cross, the traditio ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. She then became

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

's first graduate in Chinese language in 1940, following studies there under Ernest Richard Hughes. It was at Oxford that she met Yang. After their marriage, the couple were based in Beijing as prominent translators of Chinese literature into English in the latter half of the 20th century, working for the

Foreign Languages Press Foreign Languages Press is a publishing house located in China. Based in Beijing, it was founded in 1952 and currently forms part of the China International Publishing Group, which is owned and controlled by the Publicity Department of the Chi ...

. Their four-volume ''Selected Works of

Lu Xun Zhou Shuren (25 September 1881 – 19 October 1936), better known by his pen name Lu Xun (or Lu Sun; ; Wade–Giles: Lu Hsün), was a Chinese writer, essayist, poet, and literary critic. He was a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. ...

'' (1956–1957) made the major work of China's greatest 20th-century writer available in English for the first time. In 1957 their translation of the Qing dynasty novel '' The Scholars'' appeared. The couple were imprisoned as "class enemies" from 1968 to 1972 during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

. Their work on '' The Dream of Red Mansions'', an 18th-century novel still read by almost all educated Chinese, was interrupted by their imprisonment, but their faithful, readable three-volume translation appeared in 1978. During the 1980s, Gladys Yang translated the works of other Chinese authors for the British publishing house,

Virago Press Virago is a British publisher of women's writing and books on feminist topics. Started and run by women in the 1970s and bolstered by the success of the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), Virago has been credited as one of several British femini ...

, which specialized in women's writing and books on feminist topics. Later in life, they spoke out against the 1989

Tiananmen Square massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

, and their unpublished memoirs were officially banned in China as a result.

Personal life and life

Gladys Yang died in Beijing in 1999, aged 80, after a decade of declining health. She was survived by her husband, two daughters and four grandchildren. Their only son had committed suicide in London in 1979. When the couple were identified as class enemies and kept in separate prisons from 1968 for four years, their children were sent to remote factory farms to work. Their son became mentally ill there and never recovered.

Translations

Guo Moruo Guo Moruo (; November 16, 1892 – June 12, 1978), courtesy name Dingtang (), was a Chinese author, poet, historian, archaeologist, and government official. Biography Family history Guo Moruo, originally named Guo Kaizhen, was born on November ...

, ''Chu Yuan: A Play in Five Acts'', translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1953 * Hong Sheng, '' The Palace of Eternal Youth'', translated from Chinese by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1955 *

, ''Selected Works of Lu Hsun'', Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1956-1960 * Wu Jingzi, '' The Scholars'', translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang ; ill. by Cheng Shifa, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1957 * Liang Bin, ''Keep the Red Flag Flying'', China Youth Publishing House, 1957 * ''The Man Who Sold a Ghost : Chinese Tales of the 3rd-6th Centuries'', translated by Yang Hsien-Yi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1958 * ''Selected Plays of Guan Hanqing'', translated by Yang Hsien-yi end Gladys Yang, Shanghai, New Art and Literature Publishing House, 1958, republished: Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1958, 1979 * Feng Yuan-chun, ''A Short History of Classical Chinese Literature'', translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1958 * Sima Qian, '' Records of the Historian'', translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Hong Kong, The Commercial Press, 1974; republished: ''Selections from Records of the Historian Written by Szuma Chien'', Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1979 *

Cao Xueqin Cáo Xuěqín ( ; ); (4 April 1710 — 10 June 1765)Briggs, Asa (ed.) (1989) ''The Longman Encyclopedia'', Longman, was a Chinese writer during the Qing dynasty. He is best known as the author of ''Dream of the Red Chamber'', one of the Four G ...

, '' A Dream of Red Mansions'', translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang], Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1978 * ''The Dragon King's Daughter: Ten Tang Dynasty Stories'', Translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1980 * ''The Courtesan's Jewel Box: Chinese Stories of the Xth-XVIIth Centuries'', translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1980 * Lu Xun, ''Call to Arms'', Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1981 * Lu Xun, ''Wandering'', Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1981 * Shen Congwen, ''The Border Town and Other Stories'', edited by Gladys Yang, Chinese Literature Press, 1981 * Shen Congwen, ''Recollections of West Hunan'', translated by Gladys Yang, Panda Books, 1982 *

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

, ''Pygmalion'', translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, distributed by China Publications Centre, 1982 * Liu E, '' The Travels of Lao Can'', translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, distributed by China Publications Centre, 1983 *

Ding Ling Ding Ling (; October 12, 1904 – March 4, 1986), formerly romanized as Ting Ling, was the pen name of Jiang Bingzhi (), also known as Bin Zhi (彬芷 ''Bīn Zhǐ''), one of the most celebrated 20th-century Chinese women authors. She is known ...

, ''The Sun Shines Over the Sanggan River'', translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, distributed by China Publications Centre, 1984 * ''Poetry and Prose of the Tang and Song'', translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, distributed by China Publications Centre, 1984 * Zhang Jie, ''Leaden Wings'', translated by Gladys Yang, London, Virago Press, 1987. * Zhang Jie, ''As Long As Nothing Happens, Nothing Will'', translated by Gladys Yang, Deborah J. Leonard and Zhang Andong, London, Virago Press, 1988. * Shen Congwen, ''Selected Stories by Shen Congwen'', edited by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Chinese Literature Press, 1999 *

Feng Menglong Feng Menglong (1574–1646), courtesy names Youlong (), Gongyu (), Ziyou (), or Eryou (), was a Chinese historian, novelist, and poet of the late Ming Dynasty. He was born in Changzhou County, now part of Suzhou, in Jiangsu Province. Life Fe ...

, ''Selected Chinese Stories of the Song and Ming Dynasties'', translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, 2000 *

Qu Yuan Qu Yuan ( – 278 BCE) was a Chinese poet and politician in the State of Chu during the Warring States period. He is known for his patriotism and contributions to classical poetry and verses, especially through the poems of the '' ...

, ''Selected Elegies of the State of Chu'', translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, 2001

Biography

Personal life and life

Translations

References

Further reading